So the bookstore was on the small side… I mean really small. Take your average mall bookstore in an American mall, B. Dalton or Walden, etc… well this store was about 10% –15% the size of those. I’m talking like 15X10 feet small! So what I’m saying is that the selection was pretty limited to begin with. On top of that they must have also been catering to the local University (on the other side of town? whatever) so they had a lot of very expensive text books for very bizarre classes and a lot of specialized stuff that was just sitting there collecting dust.

Jamy began perusing the children’s section. She thought that could be a cute way to whet her palate with Portuguese. Also, just so you don’t think she’s off-base there, big-time linguists like Umberto Eco make similar recommendations, saying that children learn language visually and that is one of the main reasons why they are able to learn languages much faster than older people. Adults in school classes, however, are almost always taught (foreign) languages via wrote memorizations and depending on their individual learning style this could take a (very) long time… or just frustrate them into quitting. So, don’t laugh. Or least I didn’t… until she found a 10-page book (perhaps the Portuguese equivalent of ‘are you my mother?’) and honestly believed that was her “rosetta stone.” I knew better than to comment and kept looking for my own...

The store had a huge section (one entire shelf - from floor to ceiling) dedicated to American Authors. This was perfect! Because my intention was to find a book in Portuguese that I had already read in English so I wouldn’t have to look up every little word I didn’t understand. (I did this in Italian once before and it really worked well for me!) I would already know the gist of everything and could just read the Portuguese through, even though I wouldn’t grasp every-single word… (I just hate looking up words, I much prefer to figure them out, even if it takes me 15-pages to do so, it just feels more rewarding to figure things out from the context than to have to break concentration mid-read and begin think in English and use a dictionary). However, all the books in the American Authors section were in English! Hey, that’s not fair! We’re in Mozambique, why the hell are you guys pushing so much English language?? (Remember how small this store is, they only have like 12 shelves total and this English section was quite huge comparatively).

So after using some of my patented Italio-Guese on the clerk, he showed me to the (much smaller) section of Translated texts, and that was exactly what I was looking for. However, after I quickly looked it over, I unfortunately found very little that I was interested in, when bam- it hit me, Ayn Rand! (Thanks to my old college-friend Kaple I had successfully been reprogrammed as a Rand-Droid a long time ago, and have read ((and listened to)) “Anthem” so many times I could practically write the novel myself). So after some more Italio-Guese the clerk and I discovered there was no Ayn Rand in the store and apparently he wasn’t even able to order any of her works… his computer didn’t even list her as an Author! Guess that means there’s no Ayn Rand in all of Africa? Ahh… but when the idea of “the self” does hit this continent, I (for one :-) am predicting a huge and immediate embrace…

I was able to seduce Jamy away from the children’s section… and she very quickly snagged a copy of one of Stephen King’s less scary and more enlightening works, entitled “On Writing.” It is a more recent book of his (by recent I mean one of the 30 he’s written this year) that she had just finished reading before leaving to come here. And not only did she really like it, she said she was having it shipped here to Maputo because it would definitely come in handy with her project. So she thought it was the obvious book for her to have in Portuguese… since she would have its English accompaniment on hand in a matter of days. And while I was still trying to decide on my choice (I had narrowed the contest down to some other Stephan King book ((Carrie maybe?)) and some dumb mystery/thriller by Agatha Christie or something) when Jamy found the George Orwell section and brought my attention to it. (I had just finshished reading 1984 before leaving). When immediately this little paperback called out to me: O TRIUNFO DOS PORCOS! I had to have it. Now, you all may better know this book as “Animal Farm,” but to me it will now always be known as “Triumph of the Pigs.”

It took me about 3 weeks to make to page 50. And just one day to make it the rest of the way to the end (it’s not a long book). And as I read, I think I realized that I had never read Animal Farm before? The verdict still out on that… and even now that I’m done with the Portuguese version… the verdict is STILL out. I read it. I liked it. Did I understand it? I plan to read it one more time and then move on to another Portuguese book.

It definitely helped my Italio-Guese become less Italian and more Guese. I guess you could say I now Guese with greater ease! Haha. Oh well, hope you have enjoyed this little book report. Not much substance… but an A+ on effort. (All this blogging and I think I might be coming down with a case of Stephen King-ites: aka diarrhea of the typewriter… or word processor…)

So if you find a good Portuguese book… send it our way (we WILL have an address soon) or feel free to post your own book report, under our oh-so-cutely named topic “Book Buzz.” ALL YOU GOTT DO IS CLICK THE GET PUBLISHED BUTTON AND START TYPING. Tchau4Now and as always, Thanks4Playing!